Large computer networks may contain hundreds or thousands of components of various types, such as switches, routers, and hubs. Due to various factors such as the complexity of the components and their numbers, it is likely that, at some point, a network component will encounter a fault or otherwise cause problems that degrade the operation of the network. Management of large computer networks may therefore involve identifying network failures when they occur and locating the network component or components that contributed to or were otherwise responsible for the error. However, detecting and, in particular, locating failed network components remains a challenging endeavor.
Some approaches to locating network components that are involved in faults may involve using various statistical techniques. These may include techniques, such as expectation maximization or stochastic gradient descent, which may be used to form estimates of parameters to a statistical model. The parameters, as applied to locating faulty network components, may comprise the likelihood that a particular network component has been or is involved in a network fault.